For 16 years, director Brian De Palma has paddled a very successful life raft in the midst of Hollywood's mainstream. His subjects have included menstruation and telekinetic wrath (Carrie), assassination, conspiracy and paranoia (Blow Out), a razor-flashing drag-queen shrink (Dressed to Kill) and a demonic Cuban cocaine lord who has a mild case of fantasy incest (Scarface). His newest film, Body Double, is a murder mystery involving a woman who works in porn films and a man who is compelled to watch her through a telescope while she masturbates. We sent Jim Jerome to De Palma's New York office. Jerome reports: "For all the frenzy, titillation and terror in his movies, De Palma is strikingly, almost meditatively serene. He makes tight but peaceful eye contact, barely fidgets, and his conversation is gracefully streamlined and precise. There is nothing wasteful or tentative about the man. Nor is he explosively chummy. In the initial meeting, he dispensed with introduction and handshake. 'In here,' he nodded toward an inner room. And so we began."

Q 1

PLAYBOY: No De Palma movie, from Hi, Mom!, in 1970, to the present, would seem complete without a telescope. Are you into peeping, or would you care to advance some cinematic reason for that fact?

Brian De Palma: The most exciting, sensuous part of the grammar of film is the point-of-view shot -- what the character sees, unfiltered, uninterpreted. This is unique to film making. The moviemaking experience is that of being the watcher, and a P.O.V. shot through a scope turns the audience into the ultimate voyeur. Yeah, obviously, it has a negative connotation, but it's exciting, too. It's also part of the surrealism of movies, of dream imagery, of your unconscious desires.

Q 2

PLAYBOY: Do you like to watch?

Brian De Palma: Anybody finds it arousing to watch others engaging in sex. Why are there love scenes in movies and pornography? It's part of our culture. It wouldn't be the truth if someone said he wasn't aroused. The whole point of porno flicks is to arouse. I like the way women look and enjoy photographing them. Any healthy man has an interest in attractive women, and working with them as a director is certainly a lot more interesting than working with animals or furniture or on a prison picture.

Q 3

PLAYBOY: What research in pornography did you do for Body Double?

Brian De Palma: I wanted to find out who these people are who make fuck films, to bring some veracity to my movie. I spent a lot of time with Annette Haven, one of the models for the Holly Body character. She's been making porno films for ten years. It was my first experience in that subculture. It's totally isolated from normal film making. In fact, Annette was astonished that a normal actress had to study lines and read for a part. It was the most ludicrous idea she had ever heard of.

The film making isn't that much different, except they're just shooting people fucking. It's like surgery, very mechanical and unsexual. Most of these people have worked together over and over, like an ensemble. It's an astonishing way to make a living -- and it's big business and becoming very middle class through cassette sales. But many people in porn are more bourgeois than decadent, with boyfriends, husbands; they go to work. Bottom line, they're actors creating an illusion, like someone who plays a drunk or an addict.

Q 4

PLAYBOY: Somehow, kissing a girlfriend goodbye after breakfast before she goes off to do ten come shots seems different, don't you think?

Brian De Palma: I'd find that a little difficult myself. After getting to know these people and their motives, I lost my objectivity -- like when a mass murderer says he was molested as a child. That creates a sympathetic point of view that blunts your initial impression, even if it's awful. He's still a killer. I stepped back and said, "How can anyone really justify his existence in this world?" In the end, it left me with a sense of sadness.

Q 5

PLAYBOY: Why don't you do a slick, elegant De Palma fuck film, X-rated and all?

Brian De Palma: The X rating doesn't interest me. I don't think you can morally justify -- publicly, anyhow -- saying it's all right to be aroused. Our culture doesn't accept it. No politician can platform for voyeurism. In researching the cocaine industry for Scarface and porn film making for Body Double, I was amazed at how huge these businesses are. I mean, you ask, "Is anybody doing anything about this?" It's a serious problem, and people just step aside. There's too much money involved.